Melt Their Cold, Cold Heart, Please!

I showed a documentary on the Rwandan genocide to my class.
There was a scene where i thought was fabulous to bring out the issues of moral courage, media ethics and discrimination and where i thought would surely evoke and stir up some emotions in the kids.
Imagine this:
A horde of Tutsis had been hiding from the murderous Hutus. Upon seeing a group of foreign soldiers, they thronged forth, thinking that salvation finally arrived. Yet, the foreign soldiers ignored their pleas for help, rationalising that they were under instructions to just escort the expatriates safely out of Rwanda. Sensing that the soldiers would not help, they turned to the media, who were there to tail the foreign soldiers' mission. The Tutsis pulled out all stops while they were in front of the camera, making monkey faces, ridiculous antics and all, hoping that could change their seemingly inevitable fate. It was an all-out, last-ditch desperate bid to save their own lives. The media, with their irrepressible urge to perform their role, simply shot the scene and left.
Then, gun-shots were heard.
The inevitable happened.
It was a very emotional scene that showed the cruelty of life, the ugliness of humans and the unimaginable affront one could possibly commit against other fellow human beings, ordinary men and women who, too, had families, who, too, could feel pain, happiness and sadness.
I paused at that scene and asked my kids what they felt. They said they felt nothing. I prodded them for more. No answers were forthcoming.
I was aghast and disturbed. I shouldn't be the only one who thought insurmountable injustice had been lashed out.
An hour into the show, they thought it was simply boring, because it was not "action-packed", with what you know.
I felt so sad for my students. Are they already dead men walking even before they step into the working world, stripped of emotions and feelings?
Education must have failed them.

Freakish....

A few days back, i had diarrhoea, fever, coupled with vomitting.
Nothing out of the blue.
Except that two days later, my father came down with fever. Then a day after, my mum vomitted. My maid's stomach felt funny. Then my first sis had fever. Another day after, my second sis vomitted nine times throughout one night.
Yes, i was the host. But i just wonder where i got the virus from. Scary huh?

Empowered for More...

I just came back from a swim.
Draped in much flab and fat, i was amazed by how much ease i managed thirty laps, without much stopping in between, except to clear my googles. I haven't really exercised for the past few months.
I must sound like someone with a super huge ego, but i'm really flabbergasted by my stamina. I must be a superwoman in my previous life. Haha.
But swimming in a public pool on a Sunday morning isn't much of a pleasure. Not when the pool is packed with kids with raging hormones bent on being juggernauts, kicking and splashing their way through the pool in one straight breath, determined to ascertain who the Great One is to reign the pool.
Thank goodness I emerged alive from the crossfire, save for some internal injuries sustained from kicks by the darned ones who lived in their own Universe.
Oh well, the things you have to put up with when you need to fight flab.

Oh and when i was at the carpark leading to the sports complex, i saw the tarmac floor littered with tiny dots, remnants from the parking coupons that car-owners had conveniently poked, plucked and thrown.
I was disgusted. Argh. It reminded me of a phrase i always use in class "With freedom comes responsibility". You can have all the freedom, do whatever you want, but only when you know how to act responsibly. If you can't, you have deprived yourself of that right to freedom.
And i quiver at the thought of whether we are ready to have less rules and regulations in our nation, when we can't even have the basic civic-mindedness to even throw litter at places where they should belong. And i hate to admit that sometimes rules and regulations are necessary, thanks to such people.
And then i remembered why chewing gums were banned. Some idiot decided to stick the gum on the door of the mrt, and the door got jammed, stalling the entire train system. It sounds like an over-simplistic explanation, but it was one of the reasons. What were these people thinking?
I fail to comprehend.
Sigh.
Bring me to utopia.

So Alive...

I get worried when euphoria sets in.
I'm too happy. For no reason.
Not that i don't revel in that.
But i'm just worried about my state of being when i'm in that euphoric state.
I laugh too much. I talk too much. I adore too much. I love too much. I start acting like a kid (Hmmm, although some might argue that i act like one even WITHOUT euphoria.), innocent, with lots of love for the world.
It feels as though happiness is overspilling, so much so it feels wicked.
I felt so alive during the national day celebration in school, but i think i was the only one who felt so. The students apparently thought it way too uncool to sing along to the national songs. The teachers apparently cared too much about decorum. It would have been better if someone tried to block the songs from my ears. I just couldn't help but start tapping to them and singing along. Somebody please bind me to my seat! Tie my hands!
I started clapping loudly to the rhythm of the songs, hoping that even the dead would be roused. But nonchalance ruled the house.
The dead couldn't move. Of course. I forgot they were nailed to their coffins.
Hail Staidness! Hail Stoicalness! Hail Rules! Hail Regulations!
But i won't have no part in this.
I've been reborn. Alive. Well. Kickin.

The Beauty of Less

The beauty of less.
Not of skin, but of words.
This resonates more and more deeply with every essay that i mark. Ha.
I simply cannot understand why people see that urging need to use pompous words, when delivery with simple, clear English will more than suffice.
We write to be understood first. Then to impress.
We don't write to confuse. Then HOPING to impress with whatever nonsensical what-not concocted to drag the mind through a journey of oz.
Make every word count. No more. No less.
And my marking becomes a pleasure.
Hark. I think insanity from marking has set in. Because i have just asked for more than the impossible.